Nostalgia, Radio Days, and Coming Attractions
See? It IS possible to design a functional yet striking poster not reliant on airbrushed, faux painted big actor heads.
Here’s the first of several reviews held in stasis while the internet was being fixed (apparently it was a ‘mapping issue’) and I was primarily working away from home base during the interim.
First up is Woody Allen’s Radio Days (1987), released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time.
I remember buying the soundtrack album years ago (RCA Novus, if I recall correctly) which featured some bouncy period songs.
My favourite period in pop culture and nostalgic gear sort of begins with live TV in the fifties, but the sound guy part of me has a soft spot for certain aspects of radio – not the shows or the music, but just like live TV, the excitement of creative and technical teams putting on a show live, and audiences transfixed / addicted to what they hear or see, or imagine.
There are easy parallels with later generations grown up with TV in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties, but as Julie Kirgo writes in the excellent essay, “Perhaps, someday, there will be a poignant, streaming memoir, Web Days.”
Radio bled into TV – the ad sponsorship format, commercial breaks, star system, tuning into daily / weekly shows, and buying related merchandise – so it’s not hard for fans glued to episodes of ABCs Lost (2004-2010) to relate to audiences tuning into a show in 1944, but what will be nostalgic and what constitutes a sense of nostalgia is a bit grey if everything is easily accessible.
Maybe the correlation lies in simply having deep affection for wanting to re-experience a beloved series of media events rooted to good feelings, or collective enjoyment.
If fans of Twin Peaks can still wax on in 2014 about the fervor over David Lynch and Mark Frost’s iconic show (Season 1 + a third of Season 2; the rest was shit), it’s hard not to believe those hooked on Homeland, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad will have nostalgia for being excited, frustrated, and pining for more goodness (but maybe not that period of withdrawal when you know It’s Over; There Will Be NO MORE; and You Must Find Another Show OUT THERE To Love).
Coming next: Twilight Time’s Blu-ray of Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday means one thing – that I voluntarily watched not only the great 1950 film, but that 1993 remake. In real time. And never once hitting the shuttle button. Because I’m that intrigued in seeing how good intentions go very, very wrong.
And right after: Brick Mansions on Blu from VVS. I know, I know. But it’s that faint hope where maybe Luc Besson might not hammer out another lazy franchise installment. Sigh….
And then: Working on stuff. Over the last 2 weeks I’ve gathered seven interviews of which five will be podcasts, and two will be transcripts, plus a print version for Rue Morgue’s October issue.
Cheers,
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com
Category: EDITOR'S BLOG
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